When does a guest review border on slander/defamation?

Maeve9
Level 3
South Carolina, United States

When does a guest review border on slander/defamation?

A "no-show" guest who forgot his date of arrival and wanted his $38 dollars refunded has managed to give me an inside the home review even though he never crossed the threshold.

Airbnb say there's nothing they can do and that he had the right to review because he didn't cancel his booking since he forgot to arrive. 

 

20 Replies 20
Lisa1680
Level 2
Toronto, Canada

@Robin4 thank you so much for the astute and comprehensive guidance. I'm definitely going to use some of your ideas about a succinct emotionless statement as my review.  I'm feeling really warmed by all my fellow super hosts lending me this support. 🙂

I've only been hosting since July and this may have been a super unpleasant experience but I'm grateful for having learned an immense amount and feel even more connected to our global community of home sharers and travellers.

 

hey, I've had some great guests from Australia + two of my cousins live there.  🙂

 

Take care,

 

Lisa

D--Louisa0
Level 2
Whitehorse, Canada

Good strategy to respond to a guests review as this is opportunity to clarify some facts with diplomacy as the medicine

Annette305
Level 2
San Diego, CA

I’m disgusted with Airbnb’s policy’s. They don’t protect hosts at all nor do they honor our refund policy. Woman checked in, said my place was dirty, crapped in toilet and spread some all over toilet seat, pushed to in toilet, turned ac up to 65, called me and said they weren’t paying and weren’t staying. They told Airbnb my place was filthy. I agreed to refund 1/2 and defended myself by submitting phots of how clean my place was.  They told me they u derstood she was lying etc. couple days later they contacted me and said she’s insisting on full refund   They gave it to her!  Then, she posted a terrible review saying my house smelled like piss etc…AND THEY REFUSE TO REMOVE IT! I keep emailing demanding it be removed. She didn’t pay a penny, was in my house less then 5 minutes, defaced it-it was disgusting and then gets to review me? It’s slanderous. Seriously I want to get a lawyer. But I think I’m done with AIRBNB and I won’t use it as a guest either. Going to try other long term venues. More I think about it- I think this woman is a sociopath. Airbnb doesn’t give a **bleep**-excuse the pun-about hosts at all.  

I hope you don't mind me asking a year later, did things get any better? I hope you are doing well as a host and you @annette305had subsequently good experiences, best wishes 

Join legal shield and have them write a letter with absolute proof that your place clean a witness or two would be helpful. My first step will be suing  this guest who of a sudden made my place dirty to get a refund she was not entitled to 

She had asked me through the Airbnb messenger if there were stairs and I said 6 stairs and 2 Landings and 5 more, however I wlll be happy to take your luggage up the stairs because this is not a ground floor apartment. 

 

Why are the stairs so important? She shows up here with a morbidly obese husband who has to be a minimum of 325 lbs and it took him over  15 minutes to disembark from the SUV and I see an industrial sized walker placed on.the grounds and I said to myself how

**

physically incapacitated

**

to make.up.15 stairs and on the morning of day 3 she has  departed with a list of diatribes but twice through the Airbnb messenger  she admonishes me for not telling her there wasn't any elevator to the second floor and she contradicts herself by saying I didn't tell her there was no stairs period. First she says she didn't know there was   no elevator and then she says through the Airbnb private notes .that I didn't tell her at all. I pointed out Airbnb that I had two different conversations throughout your site and the evidence is incontrovertible that she's a bold faced liar and  of course these feckless Bay area frauds rewarded this pathological liar a refund for 8 days and her one star review completely descreated my listing going forward. I went from a $7100 June to a $1,464 July and a $1,654 ,July and to this date my occupancy  dropped over 42%  and even to this date I only have 52% of the month booked and in November a host from Newport Beach approached..through the Airbnb messenger and told me that ** did the same thing to them in 2018 and completely descreated their listing and they wanted to use my situation with this ** to get ** review off of their listing which puts their review number at 3.36 despite all of their other listings are five star reviews across the board   I am going to sue these jackals in small claims court and I told Airbnb that you asinine rules do not supercede the civil laws in this country. You are  essentially the newspaper that knowingly approved this ** review and despite incontrovertible evidence that she completely lied and it's there to see and you decided to condone your scumbag superhost and reward her disgusting tactics twice. Your San Franciscan ambassador's are going to have to explain why her verifiable lies is part of your company's review policy which. rubber stamped deliberate libelous lies.  I am to see  how many other hosts has suffered. economic hardship because you know when. a guest wants a refund they're not entitled they're going to use your asinine review policies as a weapon  against the host  and. instead of  correcting your asinine policies you screw over your hosts repeatedly. Your policies invite this type of disgusting behavior 

Sudsrung0
Level 10
Rawai, Thailand

Dont do things like that in Thailand, Liable and Slander are a criminal offence here 5 to 6 years in jail,